AOL users

There are a number of issues affecting AOL users. The following info may help you understand what the problems are.

The AOL service makes extensive use of web page "caching" whereby web pages are pre-stored on AOL servers in order to provide faster load times for dial-up customers. These web pages are not always up to date with the "live" web pages on the actual web site in question. The problem is that the Captcha images are also being stored by the caching process. This means that by the time you type in your response to the image in the Registration process you are likely seeing an older, cached image and what you type will not match the newly generated captcha image from the website and the Registration fails.

One possible solution is to hold down the “Ctrl” or “CONTROL” key on the keyboard and mouse clicking on the AOL browser reload icon

There is also a problem with AOL changing the IP address (this is normally the address of your computer on the web) during a browsing session. So if you log into a members only section of a website it stores your IP address and checks it on every page load as a security check, if the IP address changes during the session the website will think there is a security breach and log you off. You may have had this on other websites and not known what the problem was. AOL often blocks emails from automated reply systems treating them as spam. A lot of sites where you can register as a member or to receive email newsletters send an authentication email that you must reply to to activate the request, these often get blocked.

AOL provides a sort of buffer zone from the internet and that suits some people, but it can prevent users from experiencing the full range of things available. I personally would use Internet Explorer (and upgrade to version 7 for free) or Firefox (free). You are more likely to see and be able to use websites as the developers intended rather than crippled by AOL.